Sgt. Joe Barzeski is the closest thing in Central Iraq to a miracle worker.

And 11-year-old Ali is going to need a miracle to get over burns from a kerosene stove.

"(The skin) has to come off so that the medicine will work," Barzeski tells CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer as he starts treating the child. "Plus, this will get all crusty, and scab up and that will be an ugly scar."

The soldiers turn up the radio to drown out the crying. Conditions are primitive. But even so, the burn unit is filled to capacity.

It's tucked away on a U.S. base that's known as the biggest gas station in Iraq. It's where military convoys refuel - while on the far side, Iraqi families, as many as 80 a day, wait patiently to be admitted to a clinic that's more M.A.S.H. unit than E.R.

Barzeski had no medical training before he joined the Army - so he's been learning on the job.

Many of the volunteers are tough convoy security guards. They dish out tenderness and Tylenol, or painstakingly changing burn victims' dressings while their trucks are serviced.

If you'd like to help, the top video has contact information included near the end.